kvm install guest without gui?

I'm running Debian Squeeze and kvm/qemu which installed successfully. Is there any equivalent to the way xen did it, where it bootstraps in and you just console in and set the rest up, or do you have to build vnc somehow to finish the guest install? I don't want a gui on either host or guest.

I have also tried connecting to it with a Debian server running a gui on the same subnet using vnc, but it won't connect. Then I tried to use virt-install with the -serial switch, but that just errored out and wouldn't build the machine

Ubuntu has the vmbuilder tool which does it, but I don't know if it's available for Squeeze as well.
Otherwise, you must use VNC, but you don't need to install a desktop on the host or guest. You jsut need some desktop system with a VNC client.

vmbuilder is available for Etch, but still waiting to be ported to Squeeze, it errors out when I attempt to run it.

on a Debian machine with a gui and vnc on the same subnet trying to connect to ip.of.kvm.box:1 I get a connection refused, though I can vnc/rdp using this same client to several other boxes on the subnet, do I need to install any other app on the KVM box? The KVM box doesn't have a gui.

If I can't get this to work, can I do the same thing in virtualbox, and is virtualbox performance similar to KVM? Most of the time I don't use gui's at all, that's a real disadvantage for server admin, which is why I used xen until it got pulled from the kernel in Squeeze

on a Debian machine with a gui and vnc on the same subnet trying to connect to ip.of.kvm.box:1 I get a connection refused, though I can vnc/rdp using this same client to several other boxes on the subnet, do I need to install any other app on the KVM box? The KVM box doesn't have a gui.

If I can't get this to work, can I do the same thing in virtualbox, and is virtualbox performance similar to KVM? Most of the time I don't use gui's at all, that's a real disadvantage for server admin, which is why I used xen until it got pulled from the kernel in Squeeze

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Yes, you can do this with vBoxheadless (see the tutorials on this site), but you still need a remote desktop connection. I can't say much about the performance, but I guess KVM should be more performant since it's an official part of the kernel.

ok, even after you run virsh, you still have to connect to the local machine to undefine it:

Code:

virsh -c qemu:///system undefine c

but then something is wrong with my setup I'm using the create a new domain with virt-install, this tries to create another domain named 'c' for some reason, I'm betting it's due to a deprecated switch of some kind, possibly on the .iso source location, so I'm trying:

I'll post if I get it working. In the meantime, just use Debian Lenny, it's far easier, I needed Squeeze because Lenny didn't have my NIC drivers for a HP DL180 G6 and I didn't want to compile them, they are part of Squeeze though.